South San baseball lawsuit strikes out

By Craig Kapitan :
May 18, 2012
: Updated: May 18, 2012 11:03pm

A judge Friday thwarted an attempt by South San High School's baseball team to stay in the playoffs by challenging an umpire's controversial call to the legal system.

“Even though I don't like what happened — the umpire probably made some mistakes in this case — I don't see a reason to grant an injunction,” state District Judge David Berchelmann said as South San players and parents sat in the presiding courtroom gallery at the Bexar County Courthouse.

South San Antonio Independent School District trustees unanimously voted Thursday to seek a temporary restraining order against North East ISD and the University Interscholastic League following a loss last Saturday to Johnson High School in the Class 5A baseball playoffs.

The dispute centered on a UIL regulation that limits high school pitchers to 10 innings per day. South San officials have argued the rule doesn't apply to postseason play.

South San's Eric Garcia was in the middle of his 11th inning pitching, in the second game of a doubleheader, when NEISD's athletic director walked onto the field with a UIL official on the phone and handed it to the umpire, lawyers told the judge Friday. The umpire then reversed a prior decision to let Garcia continue pitching, taking him off the mound and erasing two outs that South San had already made, they said.

Phil Marzec, an attorney for South San ISD, said it was wrong for NEISD “to interfere with the process of the umpire's responsibility for calling the game as he sees fit.”

An appeal should have been lodged with UIL after the game, but instead Johnson was allowed to “change things in the middle of the game” and as a result received a five-out inning, Marzec said. Johnson ended up beating South San 5-4, with one of the runs scored during the disputed inning.

“As Yogi Berra said, ‘It's not over till it's over,'” South San attorney Jim Heidelberg told the judge of the district's decision to litigate the dispute.

Attorneys for NEISD disputed South San's version of how the umpire's decision was reached and denied the NEISD athletic director had undue influence on the game. But they didn't elaborate, arguing instead that such a claim didn't belong in court in the first place.

“There really is no legal basis for this type of claim,” attorney Rick Lopez said. “The courts have specifically held ... there's no constitutional issue at play here. Participation in extracurricular activities is a privilege, not a right.”

In addition, Lopez argued, UIL rules state that any legal disputes between schools are to be heard in Travis County so as not to give one party a “home-field advantage.”

Before announcing his ruling, Berchelmann agreed that NEISD's arguments about improper venue were probably correct. But with the clock ticking until the next playoff game, a decision was needed immediately, the judge said.

After the hearing, players clad in South San baseball T-shirts expressed disappointment but wished Johnson luck. They never expected their season to end in court but didn't regret standing up for themselves, they said.

The brief hearing taught the students a valuable lesson, said Prado, the school board president.

“You didn't stop just because they told you ‘no.' You didn't just roll over,” she consoled players as they left the courthouse. “You went to the top and fought.”